


Unprecedented

by flowersforlukey



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Denial, Eventual Smut, M/M, Pre-Thor (2011), Sibling Incest, Slow Burn, Thor: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-05-31 01:56:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15109406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforlukey/pseuds/flowersforlukey
Summary: The first time Thor wraps a hand around Loki’s neck, they’re only merely approaching the years of adolescence.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I'm back with angsty thorki! Eventually wrote some smut here because I've only been writing some brotp fics. I've been dying to write this because I'm seriously a hoe for thor's wrap-a-hand-around-loki's-neck type of thing and it just gets me, you know? ANYWAY
> 
> second chapter is done and will be posted soon. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The first time Thor wraps a hand around Loki’s neck, they’re only merely approaching the years of adolescence.

Thor is fumbling with the duvet made a mess above the bed when Loki enters his room in a faint struggle of tears. Thor only looks up from the sheets when he takes notice of the door being slammed into its frame, but he hears his brother’s cries stifled beneath his fingers beforehand.

Loki hoists himself up onto the bed, burying his face into the scramble of pillows in hopes of silencing his cries.

He feels small tentative hands reaching for the nape of his neck, and Loki looks up to find his older brother Thor looking at him with worry in his features.

“Why are you crying, Loki?”

“Father has sent me to be scolded,” he whispers, voice minimizing in reflex as if fearing that the All-father might still be able to hear him. “I didn’t _mean_  to shatter the goblets on the altar, Thor! I only wanted to practice my magic because mother has been teaching me since.”

A loud clap of thunder roars from the distance. Thor’s fingers grow tense around his neck, and Loki watches the worry on Thor's face slowly dissolve into a distinct flash of relief.

“Did father say those horrible things he used to say to me?” Thor asks.

“Even worse.” Loki nodded, frantic. His voice is melted by the echoes of thunder in the hollow corners of the room. “He said that the palace will only suit my  _silly games_  ill, and that I shouldn’t have had mother teach me things to begin with. Father called my magic a  _game_ , Thor, he said it’s not a gift.”

Loki throws a frightened look at the windows. Thunder continues to roll about and send bolts of electricity in the sky.

“That is terribly mean of father, Loki,” Thor says, his voice dropping to a whisper despite the deafening roars in the sky. “And what of mother?”

“She apologized to father about my mistakes and begged to talk to me. I only ran because I fear I might get scolded again.”

Thor could only shake his head at the thought. “Mother would never do so.”

Loki sobs into his brother’s chest unceasingly, pale trembling hands clutching at his tunic. Thor holds him in silence, rocking him slowly as the fingers around Loki’s neck begin to loosen. A tiny lapse lets Loki pull away, blinking lashes heavy with tears, before he collapses again, his breathing eventually evening out.

“Just be careful next time, brother.” Thor half-whispers in attempt to lift his brother’s spirit so he could soon lull him to a peaceful slumber. “If father gets angry again, I will be there to stand by your side.”

It forces a sigh out of Loki. He pulls away from Thor’s chest and studies the calm expression playing on his face, memorizes the tightness of Thor’s fingers around his neck, and hopes he will never forget how his brother had managed to erase the fear from his mind.

Thor may still be small and frolicsome, but Loki could never overlook the sense of maturity and protectiveness he sees in his own brother, and he proves himself right yet again when Thor removes his hand around Loki’s neck and promises to count the stars with him if Loki agrees to sleep his fears away.

…

The second time Thor wraps a hand around Loki’s neck, they have just discovered yet another hidden path toward the training grounds.

Loki is occupying his time inside the library, reading through lines on the pages alone save for the shadows of the bookshelves cast upon his figure, as well as Frigga’s silhouette as she disappears further into the bookshelves.

The sun has set resolutely below the horizon, and only the candles lit around the table serve as a light for Loki as he squints into reciting another spell from one of the pages Frigga had intentionally folded before, figuring out that neither of her sons was ready to learn about such complex spells.

If Loki is being honest, he has grown more and more uninterested from all the tutoring sessions he has been attending with his tutors. Loki is fast learner, and inheriting Frigga’s natural gift only adds as a bonus. Though the lack of enhanced knowledge has led Loki into considering learning about spells beyond his knowledge  _and_  capabilities, which is why he’s back inside the library again, after consulting his mother about his interest over conjuring blades sometime before the sun had set, and watching her face fall into an expression of both exasperation and fond.

“You have conjured daggers before, my son, am I correct?”

Frigga returns to her seat across from Loki and drops the books she just claimed from the bookshelves onto the table.

“I have,” Loki says, nodding. He glances up from the edges of the book in his hands. “Thor and I used to play with knives.”

Frigga chuckles warmly at that and shoots a playful glare at Loki’s direction. “ _You_  played with the knives, and Thor never looked less petrified whenever you hid a blade behind your back.”

Loki returns the laugh. “It was a good memory.”

“Well, you’re going to have to learn to control materializing them, and if you learn quickly enough, there’s no doubt you’ll be having quite a variety of weapons with you.”

Then they go from there. Frigga flips several pages ahead of the book Loki has been reading and points her finger to a text that gives out a brief description of conjuring aura blades. Loki insists to conjure a dagger before they begin to be reminded of the basics and Frigga nods at him in agreement. He flutters his eyes shut, clasps his fingers around the air and opens them later on to reveal a small dagger lying flatly against his palm.

“Excellent,” Frigga says. “Now make the blade sharper.”

Loki focuses on sharpening the blade, but when he unclasps his fingers they reveal a knife which has only increased in size.

Frigga returns to the book and begins instructing the process to Loki. He closes his eyes and creates a  _psi_  ball, collecting energy after grounding and centering while holding it. The same energy escapes his fingers in a subtle glow of green, and Frigga watches his fingers in fond as the idea of Loki’s proficiency over knowledge becomes a sight before her eyes.

Loki’s concentration is written all over his face. He imagines the ball contracting and stretching so that it starts to form the shape and dimensions of the dagger. The blade is sharper and the size has still increased. It begins to materialize so Loki opens his hands to reveal the result.

“You did it,” Frigga tells him, the familiar mask of pride flashing across her features. Loki follows her eyes to where they land on his palm. “Try a dagger each from both hands.”

Loki learns fairly quickly after that, and Frigga grows more impressed by the skills acquired by her son as they go on. Eventually, they end up having a row of daggers on the table, and this has only become possible because Loki had insisted on creating a collection of his conjured daggers.

“I think you’ve had enough, Loki,” Frigga tells him, sometime right after Loki had stolen several books himself and began reading more passages and spells about weaponry. “I worry you have been spending  _too_  much time with your brother.”

Loki laughs, grinning at Frigga from ear to ear. “That, you are correct.”

Frigga responds with a sigh, but makes no move to stop the teenager from eagerly flipping pages from the book in his hand.

Loki continues to busy himself with his books and spends a certain amount of time wondering why he had only managed to discover this variety of weapons now.

“Very well, then,” Frigga calls out, balancing herself onto her feet. “I will only visit your father and return here. Do not go anywhere, Loki, especially not with these blades. You know what I mean.”

There’s a faint hint of a warning at the end of Frigga’s sentence. It makes Loki break out into a smile, realizing that it will have to be a little over an hour before he leaves the place.

The sound of boots crushing rocks underneath emerges from the backdrop of the library’s silence. Loki’s fingers grow still at the rims of the pages but wills himself not to look too bothered.

Another sound soon interrupts, followed by pained curses from whom Loki could guess to be the source. At first, it was distant, too far away to be Frigga who hasn’t even left the halls. But it comes steadily closer and all the while more intense, until Loki is forced to squeeze his hand and conjure yet another dagger.

“Hey!”

The sharp turn of Loki’s head is abrupt, and the source of sound is soon given attention. Loki peers at the window right next to the nearest bookshelf and squints at the rather familiar wounded knuckles gripping tightly onto the stone.

“Loki, it’s me!” Thor calls out again, but his voice sounds as if the air in his lungs is being held back and Loki saunters closer to the window to investigate. “Could you, uh, help?”

“Why are you hiding here, you oaf?” Loki questions his clumsy brother as soon as he’s pushed the glass free and assisted Thor into the still noiseless library.

Thor has just come freshly from the training yards; Loki doesn’t need to ask to be able to tell. In fact, the training yards happens to be the only place Thor has been visiting these couple of days, clearly not mentioning the fact that although Loki rather claims that Thor's constant crave for sparring is brought by the rush over the fact that the All-father will soon be gifting Mjolnir to his hands, Thor likes to say that he’s only spending more time than necessary there to isolate himself from his dutiful crown prince errands.

Loki watches with an incredulous look as Thor hoists himself onto the table. “You can’t be here right now. Mother and I were practicing.”

“Mother?” Thor asks with a grin, scanning the wide area as if to show that he’s not seeing their mother anywhere. “Does this mean you’re not going to skip your lessons and come with me?”

“Oh please, Thor,” Loki groans, already walking a few feet away from his brother whom he really wants to punch in the face right now. “I don’t need Odin hauling me back into the throne room for your own shambles. Besides, mother and I have been rather busy with these. Look _ _.__ ”

Thor’s eyes follow him as Loki gestures to the wide array of daggers laid neatly on the table. Loki catches a glimpse of the slight flinch of Thor’s arms as he eyes the very same weapon that made its way to his hip back when they were still children.

Loki unsuccessfully hides his knowing grin. “What?”

“Perhaps you plan on stabbing me with that?”

“I just might.”

“Then stab me in the training yards,” Thor says, at the same time lifting himself off the table to cross the floor and place a hand around Loki’s neck. His fingers are rough against the silken expanse of Loki’s skin but Loki pays no mind. “Come with me to the training yards. I might have found another path to get there without you having to get us invisible.”

The wounds around Thor’s knuckles are evident but they have already dried out, and Loki makes a mental note to find the time after their little adventure to wrap them all with a healing spell. They are warm around his neck as well, and Loki leans in just the slightest to chase the comfort.

If Loki wasn’t too occupied in staring at his brother with obviously expressed incredulity, he might just have had the time to push his brother away and turn down the tempting offer.

Young, rash, and foolish Thor. Loki thinks he might never get used to his brother acting like an easy target, but he thinks he might just prove himself wrong soon in the future.

In the end, Frigga returns not-so-oblivious to the clone Loki had left reading on the table, and hopes that neither of her two sons was out in the city again, doing the least kind of danger she would want them to do.

They definitely were.

…

The third time Thor wraps a hand around Loki’s neck, Thor had just received Mjolnir as a gift from the All-father and Loki had to watch his arrogance grow from behind.

They’re all back in the busy feast hall, several heads swarming in the crowds to lose themselves into a merry celebration after a whole day of preparing a ceremony for the succeeding crown prince.

Much to Loki’s dismay, Thor has become loud and conceited, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Loki considers this as his own reflection of the quote  _ _‘_ adding fuel to the fire’ _,__ he might just provide Thor the counsel he claims he doesn’t need, and just say it right into Thor's face that Asgard doesn’t need an arrogant king.

Envy is a good way of saying how Loki feels about his brother. He supposes everything is doing  _oh_  so well for Thor, judging by the cheers lauded in his direction, the confident raise of his hand as he clutches Mjolnir, and the exhibited flash of pride worn by the All-father as well as Frigga, who stayed unmoving by the king’s side but showed no less of the joy she felt for her son.

Thor is a good prince, and Loki has to remind himself that if he were standing in front of the same crowd in Thor’s shoes, he’d probably inherit the same sense of pride over himself.

He’s happy for his brother, of course. He  _has_  to be. It just doesn’t feel right forcing out a show of pride for his brother when half of Asgard barely remembers that it isn’t just the first prince existing in the palace. That there's still the  _second_  prince.

Frigga and the Lady Sif share the same table with him, Thor and the three drunken heads lost in the crowd, doing only the Norns know what. Loki doesn’t waste another second wondering whether Thor himself is just as smashed as the Warriors Three. He most likely already is. Frigga might not be able to get her son to acquire the decency to hold his festive routines at least on the day of his triumph, but Loki believes that with just the right push, Thor just might.

The servants set a silver platter right in front of him. When the lid is removed white wisps had etched themselves on the cold air, stretching out to caress his nostrils in a rather unpleasant way.

Loki feels sick all of a sudden, the churning of his stomach only worsening as the sight of his brother  _finally_  comes into view.

Thor is definitely outrageously drunk. There’s no questioning needed because he doesn’t send a single glance to Loki even once he is forced by Hogun to sit on the chair across from him. If Thor wasn’t drunk, he probably still wouldn’t be giving much attention to his brother, but he still  _would._

Loki hates everything and everyone, especially Thor’s face and his ridiculous crimson cape and his stupid hammer. He reaches for his own goblet and places it right in front of Thor’s face, where his eyes immediately dart to the tempting offer of good ole preserved wine.

“Loki,” Frigga warns him. “Don’t encourage your brother.”

“It is fine, mother,” Thor then reassures her, winking at Loki’s direction for a silent word of gratitude. Thor drowns the whole thing in one go and Loki  _really_  tries to conceal his amused grin.

The feast hall has always been a place of unrestrained joy. Thor is soon lost once again in the crowd, searching for the Warriors three whom Loki suspects to be nowhere to be found.

He doesn’t really care. Loki does not want Thor anywhere near him, but if seeing him also means watching him stumble into a different person every single second as he fights his way through the crowd, he’ll survive.

Eventually, boredom catches up to him. The sight of Thor laughing and spitting out stupid curses into the air no longer entertains him, so Loki scans the around the area for another view. He spots Fandral around the corner, each arm wrapped around a maiden with one of them already advancing on him in the most inappropriate ways. Loki turns away, disgusted.

When Frigga is finally gone, and the only people left on the table is the lady Sif and himself, he no longer announces his departure.

Loki pulls himself from the chair, but when he’s finally about to push himself towards the crowded hallway, someone stops him.

“Prince Loki!” Volstagg claps him on his shoulder blade, making him stumble at the unnecessary amount of force. “I’m certain that you wouldn’t want to leave this early, my prince.”

Loki heaves out a sigh. Seriously, how more difficult can this be?

“You’re leaving?” Sif asks him, turning around in her seat to throw him a look of disbelief. “On the very day of your brother’s triumph?”

“The day is soon to end,” replies Loki.

Sif eyes the crowd for a moment before turning to him again. “Thor will search for you.”

As if that’s going to make him stay.

Loki shakes his head, unable to contain the bitterness in his chuckle. He brushes off the nonexistent dirt on his leathers and sends her a grin. “Thor already has  _everyone _,__ Sif. He doesn’t need me.”

Then he’s walking out without another word. Loki is only praying that his timing to cloak himself to invisibility was accurate enough that no one noticed the direction he took upon leaving the feast hall.

Stupid Thor and his stupid friends and that stupid hammer. It’s ridiculous how effortlessly Thor proves Loki’s point of being neglected as the second prince, because Thor himself can’t even go on a night of his triumph without ignoring his own  _brother._

Every breath that escapes Loki’s lips is a result of the irritation that has built up inside him. He’s all alone now, save for the line of guards keeping watch over the feast hall. The sound of his boots crushing scattered stones echo through the hall, and Loki makes a detour from the chambers and finds his way toward Frigga’s garden.

This is good. Loki could only hope that Frigga has busied herself with Odin and is apparently not present anywhere in the area. He casts a look upon the city alight in front of him and takes the sight in, breathing, letting the steam out.

Asgard is beautiful; from the molds of the ancient architecture proudly standing in the busy city, down to the lights adorning their grandeur even through the darkened sky.

Loki takes in the sight of the shrubs contrasting the light that hit the surface of the stone walls in the garden. This garden is the place where Frigga had first taught him to control his seidr; Loki, still a young child, imitating Frigga’s clasping hand movements and mastering the gesture until the first sparks of green appear underneath the skin of his palm.

The wind brushes against his face; crisp enough to bite but still warm. Loki smiles. He could spend the night drowning in the silence of the garden and pretend that he has all the time in the world. 

The sound of sluggish footsteps interrupts his breathing, and when Loki turns around to face the intruder, he suddenly doesn’t want to spend the whole night in the garden at all.

“Is this some kind of jest?” Loki spats. Thor flashes him a dopey grin in return.

“You have to be out there celebrating.” Thor strolls over to where Loki is leaning against the stone wall. “With me.”

“You’re  _impossible _,__ ” Loki grunts, fists clenching behind his back. Suddenly he is filled with the immense urge to throw Thor over the wall and wishes he’d never be able to wake up from the fall again. “I don’t  _have_  to celebrate with you, Thor. You already have everyone wrapped around your finger, you don’t need me."

 _Fool._  Loki wants to scream at himself.

Thor doesn’t say anything. His focus is trained onto the city and Loki watches him with a careful eye, studying how the grin on Thor’s face stretchers wider as if a comical thought silently uncoils in his brain.

If Loki has to be honest right now, he’d say he doesn’t know how Thor could manage to be  _this_  annoying. What did the ale stick into his head to think that leaving the crowded area in the feast hall and abandoning his companions would be worth finding Loki alone in the garden, where he has definitely indulged in the lack of company and is ready to strangle anyone who would dare take him away from it?

Why Thor is here is no longer a question he has to address. He wants something from Loki, something he  _needs_ , which apparently Loki knows but cannot so far as fight against, is something Loki himself cannot give.

“Leave me be,” Loki murmurs, voice low and unsure.

He expects a snort, hands come instead. His neck is soon being embraced by thick fingers. Thor tightens his hold around Loki but loosens it when he looks down onto his boots. Closing his eyes, he sighs. “I’m sorry, brother.”

A sour chuckle breaks out from Loki’s throat. He is  _so_  ready to hear one of the rarest apologies in the history of apologies.

“For what?”

Thor’s head snaps up to meet Loki’s eye. The subtle curve of his lips is barely noticeable Loki doesn’t even call him out on it.

“I drowned your bottle. Actually two of them. I do regret it, and I’m sorry.”

Red. He sees red, and he sees that annoying flash of teeth which Loki very much wishes to punch until they’re red as well.

“This is absurd,” Loki says, pushing Thor’s hands away and backing up from the view of the garden, his legs already leading him away from the garden. “ _You’re_  absurd, and you smell like a rotten goat. Get away from me.”

The echo of laughter behind him is loud and Loki almost wishes he isn’t walking through an unoccupied corridor so Thor wouldn’t be so goddamn obnoxiously loud to being with.

“Take me to my chambers, brother. I’m too drunk for this!”

All right, that’s it. Loki only has to flick his hand in a certain gesture before the sound of Thor yelping and falling to the ground enters his hearing range.

Loki stops in his tracks, throwing his brother a look of pure revenge and grinning to himself. “I knew you loved snakes, but I was very certain you wouldn’t appreciate lizards. Especially the huge ones.”

As if on cue, the two lizards crawling on Thor’s back meet at his shoulders, sending Thor into toppling as his arms hastily reach for his back. Loki spends his time savoring the sight before Thor practically throws both reptiles towards his agonizingly annoying brother.

Eventually, Loki ends up dragging Thor to his chambers. He doesn’t know how they began strolling towards a fixed destination but pays no mind when Thor finally shuts up and fixes a grim line on his face, obviously still upset at Loki’s recent show of tricks.

“You should bathe before you pass out,” Loki suggests. “I can’t stand your breath.”

Thor huffs at the comment. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Thor does end up doing exactly what he has been told to do. Both of his arms remain under the water, groans of relief easily escaping from his lips in careful breaths as he massages the knots in his thighs.

Loki watches from a mere distance, seated only on the stool next to the door at Thor’s plead for company. He’s also accountable for whatever danger Thor might find himself in—in which a perfect scenario is Thor slipping from the wetness of the floor and falling face-first—so Loki promises to keep a careful eye.

Thor’s head submerges into the water. When he resurfaces, the length of his hair is soaked and flat against his skull. Loki gets up from his seat and switches onto the rim of the barrel. Concentrating, he threads his fingers through the blond mop atop Thor’s head.

“That’s nice,” Thor says, a moment after his eyes fall shut.

Loki begins scratching gently on Thor’s scalp. “I take it you are grateful for my presence, then.”

Thor snorts, eyes still shut. “That happens once in a blue moon. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Loki continues the gesture, absentmindedly, at the least. His brain drifts off to the last occurring parts of the ceremony when the loud ring of silence from the crowd erupts into deafening cheers, and the streaks from the sun hit the corners of Thor’s lips as they lift up to a proud curve.

He imagines being in the sole of Thor’s shoes. What must it feel like to be met with pride and joyous cheers at every courageous act he does? To see the approving nod of the All-father as the token and proof of his worth is gifted to him in front of their people?

Thor stirs underneath his fingers and Loki looks down at his face. His brother is still so young. Loki wonders if the rush from the promise of reign is something that drives Thor into doing what he does now; assuring his image as Asgard’s warrior, the kingdom’s crown prince, the honored son of the All-father— _everything_  that Loki isn’t.

It’s all so easy to want to be in Thor’s position. Loki wonders if he's anywhere close to being left out from a hint that what he’s thinking opposes to the possibilities laid out before him.

Loki doesn’t know which side he prefers to see from his brother. The man fit to rule, or the young child creeping back into his self once liberated from groups of unfamiliar ears and found instead within Loki’s company.

“Thor,” Loki says. Thor pops an eye open but otherwise closes it again at the scratch of Loki’s fingers. It drags a sigh out from Loki until his fingers stop moving completely and Thor is forced to look at his brother. “Don’t be arrogant.”

Thor is used to Loki saying  _these_  words, but he isn’t used to Loki saying them with a certain tinge of sincerity.

“I can disagree.”

“You can’t, and you  _are_  arrogant.” Loki fixes him with a stern look. “I would not say something so blunt if I wanted to give you the chance to disagree.”

Loki is right; these chances fairly come but they always end up having Thor proving his brother wrong, acting rashly though unnecessary if it meant besting Loki’s doubt.

It’s only a beat before Loki speaks up again.

“If you become king and I am to be your adviser, and you still  _act_  like so, what use would I be?”

Thor chooses his card and sticks with it. He doesn’t say anything more, plans on not saying anything at all, and Loki takes this as his cue to continue rubbing his fingers against Thor’s scalp.

Thor finishes bathing soon, and Loki offers a moment of privacy as he slips back into the room, settling on the edge of the mattress.

When Thor returns, only a towel is wrapped around the last of his modesty. He pads across the room, sitting right next to Loki on the mattress, both of their shoulders touching.

His voice is quiet, but Loki hears it still.

“Once I become king, I become king because I have you for a great adviser. You are just as important as me.”

For once, the words stun Loki enough to make him forget that he was ever feeling bitter at Thor for taking everything from him so, so effortlessly that it sometimes makes Loki feel sick for ever holding up a grudge against him. Sometimes the crash of the bottle of emotions swarming inside his chest threatens to break and makes him feel every single pain he’s locked up and pushed away to forget.

Truly, hate is easier to achieve and acknowledging the unacceptable truth of finally arriving at indifference for that growing hatred could be very terrifying for starters.

Loki excels at a lot of things, but sometimes he wishes that he’s just good at choosing.

That he knows better of his place than he doesn’t, that he knows where he should have and should be drawing the line between hatred and hope. That he knows better that hating Thor is the easiest way out than ever putting his hopes up that Thor would even become his brother again.

A brother whom Loki will not grow to neglect and hate all because of the crown that had divided them.

It forces out a chuckle from Loki. He could not have drunken so much to ever pay attention to the secluded thoughts he never so much as imaged to acknowledge. Yet there they are, swarming his head, like stars tethered piece by piece, soon collapsing into each other to burn the brightest.

Thor doesn’t smell like a rotten goat anymore. The bright cerulean in his eyes looks like the deepest of oceans and Loki finds himself drowning in them.

He looks away, more bashful than reserved. Why is he listening to his intoxicated brother anyway?

Loki throws a hard glare at the wall in front of them. “Speak of your lies behind my back. You don’t know  _anything _,__ and you don’t care. At least not about me.”

“I care about you,” Thor says defensively.

“No, Thor. You care about the Warriors Three.”

Loki’s tone is softer, much softer than it had been before Thor spoke with the slightest hint of a frown in his voice. Of course he had to sound pitiful—that was the only thing that kept Loki from reaching out and playing another show with his conjured daggers just for the sake of it.

Loki turns away, bothering no longer to spare a glance at him knowing very well that Thor could already be staring at him. But when Loki turns to him, he is right indeed—Thor is already staring.

“You lie!” is what Thor says, and it’s very obvious at the moment that his hazy brain is nowhere close to returning his sanity.

Just when Loki is about chuckle at his brother (what an oaf, seriously), Thor beats him to it by breaking into a fit of laughter, particularly for no reason.  

Loki rolls his eyes, annoyed, ready to push his brother away from him until Thor leans in and presses a hot open-mouthed kiss to his neck. It’s barely anything, but the flesh of Thor’s lips is warm and wet and Loki jumps back in reflex, staggering from the mattress in a fit of surprise.

“ _Norns _,__ Thor,” Loki says, hand blindly reaching to the spot on his neck where Thor’s lips had been just seconds ago. “What is wrong with you?”

Loki doesn’t need a response to know exactly what. Thor is already fast asleep on the mattress, his face shining with both sweat and remnants of water. He almost doesn’t look drunk.

And he almost doesn’t look like he had just  _ _kissed__  Loki on his neck with nothing so much as an implication of just  _why _.__

Loki is beginning to think that his boots are glued to the exact spot where he could perfectly watch the even rise and fall of Thor’s chest.

What in the nine realms did Fandral have to poison him with to get Thor into this unnecessary and intolerable level of amusement?

(maybe pulling Loki down into the water with him would have been nicer but  _no,_  Thor had to use his utterly stupid mouth to mess with Loki in the right places)

Because Loki is  _definitely_  not amused.

…

The next time Thor wraps a hand around Loki’s neck, it’s only been two weeks since The Night, and Thor is already acting weird.

Loki knows it isn’t the first time Thor does the familiar gesture, but it’s the first time that Thor does it in a way that’s definitely not familiar at all, does it in a way that’s too questionable for it to  _ever_  be considered a familiar gesture, and Loki is only given so little time to react before he loses his breathing and disappears from his chambers.

They have been arguing for what Loki thinks is about a couple of hours (a quick glance at the sun collapsing into the horizon tells him it hasn’t been over an hour).

Thor grits his teeth. “Know your place.”

Frigga’s words keep repeating themselves over and over inside Loki’s head it’s nearly driving him mad.

 _(“You cannot risk leaving your brother ungrounded—” “Mother.” “—for you are to guide him throughout his rule.”_ )

He should thank the All-father, really. With the burden placed on Thor’s shoulders, what chance does he have on meeting the disadvantages of ruling?

If Loki has finally accepted his fate to remain as the second prince, he’s only found himself in that position because refusing the crown (if it was offered to him) or leaving Thor with that responsibility would still give him a specific title either way.

That’s great, and Loki should really have no problem developing this acceptance, but Thor suddenly appears in the picture.

Arrogance and pride.

If Thor wants to boast, Loki doesn’t want to hear or see any of it. Watching his brother fall first in the line for the crown is already a manner of torment even Loki himself cannot manage to escape. He thinks he can no longer stand being pressed down onto the dirt even more.

Thor  _does_  have a terrible filtering system for his vocabulary. Loki is compliant and would be happy to help him with that problem only if Thor isn’t being overly-cocky about it.

“Know your place?” Loki repeats, genuinely surprised at the incredulity of the words. “How dare you say that to my face, Thor.”

Thor sighs for the umpteenth time that hour, sinking deeper into the couch that has been warming his ass for his comfort. Loki stands unmoving before him, though the flash of hurt across his face unmistakably grows even more at every word that escapes Thor’s mouth.

“I was merely giving truth to a fact.”

“How ungrateful could you be?” Loki asks. He has to, because if he doesn’t he can no longer doubt that his head would explode even before he could reach his chambers. Oh, how he wants to leave the place right now.

Thor picks at the hem of his tunic. “I  _am_ grateful, brother. You see as I make it clear every time, do you not?”

“That’s exactly the problem.” Loki lifts his hand around for more emphasis. “I see everything you throw at me. Here and there all I see and hear is word about you and your greatness and you question why I fight to keep your foolish mouth behind closed doors? How slow-paced are you before you recognize that your arrogance belittles me and everything I have ever desired for?”

When Thor sighs this time, it’s a sign of his defeat. Loki is then aware that his words have hit their mark. He watches Thor run a hand over his face and awaits his word.

“I’m sorry, Loki.”

It should be enough, but it’s nowhere close to that.

“Do not ask for me,” Loki tells him, his tone sharp and final. “Once you’ve taken the All-father’s place I will be there not because it is by my will, but because it is against mine.”

Loki begins turning his heels towards the door. His fingers are glowing with green streaks as he places a hand on the wood.

“No, wait.”

Then Thor is there again, with his hands capturing Loki’s neck in a swift movement that notes of his body’s familiarity with the gesture. Loki draws in a breath, lifts no hand to push Thor away but also not leaning into the contact.

How did they come to this? When Loki thinks about it, he surely does not miss the hilarious incredulity of the fact that he and his brother continue to be separated by the crown that was meant to unite them.

Truly ironic. And exhausting.

And he already is, sensing the exhaustion tipping him over the edge at a faster rate than he had ever imagined. So Loki drops his eyes to his brother’s shoulders, totally uninterested with the sudden shift of focus in Thor’s eyes.

Thor is staring at him.

Okay, that’s normal. Loki is already finished bothering himself with the fact because if he’s ever gotten anything from observing his brother’s habit of throwing unnecessarily consequent glances, it’s that it’s really nothing worth his time.

Only that it’s different this time. It  _feels_  different, and Loki isn’t even staring at Thor for him to be this certain. So he looks up at his brother and confirms the possibility himself.

Thor isn’t just staring at him. Thor is staring  _into_  him and Loki has to process his unspoken alarmed thoughts one more time to realize that he isn't even making any sense.

Loki has never thought it would be possible to feel so small under the scrutiny of Thor’s gaze. For a moment the fingers around his neck move to tighten the grasp until they’re holding his neck firmly to keep it in place.

He could still survive this. Loki could still… yes.

Every trace of hope in Loki’s head disappears when Thor’s eyes flicker to his lips. Goodness. They’re not even moving; orbs just plainly pointing and unblinking at the obvious sight below Loki’s nose. Then they look up again to flash just as much confusion swarming in Loki’s head at the moment. 

_Norns._

Loki swallows. He’d have to pay the nearest potent being upfront just so he could have a new brain because his current one is sure as  _Hel_  not working.

Loki forgets what breathing is and how it works. Why in the nine realms is Thor staring at his mouth? Loki forgets how to breathe but remembers how to move.

He pushes Thor away, perhaps a little too forcefully enough to give out any indication that he was indeed bothered by the recent showcase of Thor’s comfort, but Loki could not care less. Loki should  _not_  even care at all.

Thor stumbles back a little, lifts up the same hand that has wrapped itself around Loki’s neck and stares at it like it was not him that allowed his actions to result to  _this._

Loki pushes past the door without thinking. He doesn’t think because he doesn’t know what to think. He’s also running short on his vocabulary. If there’s anything he’s completely sure of at the moment, it has to be the fact that Thor is his brother and brothers do not just go staring at each other's mouths like the act is equal to wordplay or sparring.

Loki thinks back to the past two weeks.

It’s not that he’s willing to take a bet on it, but he  _is_  willing to take a bet on the possibility that Thor had been putting up several acts to get Loki’s attention.

Is it some kind of gameplay between them, Loki doesn’t know and Loki doesn’t care. Except that it’s hard to ignore his own brother when Thor had been nothing but extra whiny every time Loki had snapped at him, or overly-attached to Loki’s tail in scenarios such as entering the library and exiting the library, walking to the dining hall and walking away from the dining hall.

They have never really discussed what had happened back in Thor’s chambers after Loki had assisted him in bathing. Loki isn’t even for a fact certain if Thor remembers anything from that night.

Would it be better if he didn’t?

Of course it would. Looking back to how Thor acted around him the following morning, Loki could take a confident guess and say that his brother wasn’t at all bothered by his drunken actions in some way (considering that it was indeed him that initiated them).

The problem is now, though. One second they’re fighting, and in the next they’re already clinging to each other's necks with one looking at the other's lips.

Loki enters his bathing chambers and begins to strip. Surely, pondering too much on invalid speculations would soon take a toll on him, and he figures a dip in the water might just release every knot of tension in his body.

He doesn’t know how long he stays like that; head dangling on the rim as his body soaks itself in nearly scalding heat. But perhaps long enough that Loki already forgets having entered Thor’s room in the first place only to come out wordless and taken aback.

With a flick of his hand, the water drains out from the barrel and he’s dry as the crusts from morning bread. Loki gets up and grabs the emerald robe flung over the doorknob, sliding his arms into the sleeves and fastening the fabric securely at the front.

Then the door opens, and Thor appears.

Loki doesn’t waste a second showing the fury quickly rising from his stomach. He sends Thor a glare, but it’s not as strong as he intends it to come out.

Thor is staring at him again, and Loki's fingers consciously pull at the robe’s knot a little tighter.

“This is why we have separate chambers.”

The words fall unheard in the room. Loki arches an eyebrow when Thor doesn’t react to his words but instead remains staring at Loki and his robe and the uneasy expression on his pale face.

“What are you doing, Thor?” Loki asks, frustrated. “If you wished to speak with me, you could have at least had the decency to wait outside.”

Fortunately, that seems to work.

“I’m sorry, Loki,” Thor says, the corners of his mouth pulled down.

A sigh leaves Loki. So they’re doing this right now in the bathing chambers, while Loki, although dried, is still covered in beads of water and is clad in nothing but his flesh underneath the silken robe.

Loki would vanish himself into thin air now, or perhaps pull another trick at Thor so he’d be irritated enough and decide to leave the room, but his hands are stuck to his sides and the once steady rhythm inside his chest has become erratic.

“Not now, Thor,” he says instead. Thor takes a step forward, and Loki’s foot automatically takes one step back. He swallows rather audibly. “I swear I will kill you.”

Loki allows himself a second to study the sight of his brother and analyze just what he’s planning to do. Thor’s still in his armor, the same one he had on when Loki entered his room that day and screamed at his face for an hour. The length of his hair falling past his shoulders is no longer set with a braid, and the only change in his appearance is the stain of sweat across his forehead.

There’s an unfamiliar glint deep in his irises, but Loki finds it rather familiar because it’s the exact same glint that appeared when Thor held him by his neck and stared at Loki that made him wish that the ground would just swallow him whole.

“I only think about myself,” Thor admits, placing foot after foot and Loki following suit until the back of his knees hit the barrel. There’s nowhere to go. “I have become selfish and I have abandoned you.”

Thor’s eyes are drilling into his skull and Loki swallows hard. The knot inside his stomach is tightening as time stretches. His fingers clasp around air.

“I have belittled you, Loki,” Thor continues. He’s dangerously close now, just inches apart from Loki’s heaving chest. “I have belittled you and the things you need, the things you want.”

The way Thor spoke the last word sends Loki over the edge. His fingers twitch against the silk covering his skin, the flick of magic resurfacing.

Thor’s eyes move in a way that signals his advance for Loki’s mouth again, but Loki looks away so he wouldn’t catch the sight. Beads of sweat roll down his neck. Alive are the hairs on his skin, his own body protesting. Loki screams in his head. Thor reaches out and places a hand on Loki’s hip.

“Loki.”

Loki holds up a conjured dagger, its edge pressing against Thor’s chin hard enough that it leaves a scratch. “Brother,  _stop_.”

Thor chuckles.

“That,” he says, gesturing to the blade, raising a finger to push the dagger away from his chin and Loki more than willingly drops it to the ground. Thor leans closer, his breath a warm gush against Loki’s face. “Away.”

Damn his dignity, right?

Loki arches a brow, eyes stoic and voice fervent. “To Hel with you.”

It’s Thor who bridges the gap first, and Loki convinces himself that it was Thor because it  _has_  to be. The slide of Thor's tongue reminds Loki of the water inside the barrel when he had soaked himself—scalding, nearly a flame trailing on its on wake on his skin and he reaches up further, opening his mouth to Thor’s tongue as it searches for the heat buried deep down inside Loki’s already burning core.

Seidr rolls from his fingers and Loki tugs harshly at where his fingers have tangled themselves in the strands of Thor’s hair. Thor pulls back at the action, a strangled sound ripping from his throat, a sound that swarms Loki’s head with mislaid arousal.

Thor sinks back, Loki already meeting his mouth halfway. This is different but at the same time so familiar—the drag of Thor’s tongue when he seeks entrance, his scent an intoxication strong enough to make Loki’s eyes roll back into his head—yet Loki arches up and digs in for more, desperate to get used to the feeling of Thor’s mouth against his, warm and open and bruising.

It feels like chasing something but knowing very well that he can never truly catch the tail. Loki sighs against Thor's mouth, breathless but never wanting to stop. Seconds later, Thor pulls away.

It’s the first time Loki has seen his brother like this; utterly fucked with his hair tousled and lips slick from saliva. Loki’s saliva. Saliva from having Loki’s tongue on his and pressing and sharing equal struggled breaths.

Fuck.

It’s like he isn’t even looking at Thor at all, that the person in from of him does in fact  _look_  like Thor yet is so far from actually being Thor.

Except that he is, and Thor is staring at him with the same look just minutes ago back inside his chambers. Loki doesn’t say anything to clear the painful tension in the air, finds himself rather liking the tension and the heat that comes with it.

Thor reaches for his robe and pulls at the knot in front, the knot that happens to be the only thing that’s keeping Loki’s body from being exposed. The silken robe is pushed down from his shoulders, sliding down along his pale legs until it’s left pooling across the floor.

Loki is suddenly very bare in front of his bother with nothing around his body except for the sight of his already aching cock flat against his stomach and the flush of shame staining his cheeks red.

For a string of seconds, Thor just stares, basks in the sight of Loki so bare and willing in front of his eyes. Beads of water decorate Loki’s chest up to the line of his jaw where his head meets his neck. Then Thor surges forward and wraps a hand around that area, claiming Loki’s lips in another kiss that he hopes would bruise until the morning.

Loki’s arms throw themselves over Thor’s shoulders, hooking himself secured, falling plaint and weak. Wind sweeps past his body, skin nearly turning brittle at the sudden chill, but the flesh underneath sears at Thor’s heated touch.

One of Thor’s hands reaches behind to grope his flesh. Loki is forced to pull away from where their tongues met, a moan falling from his now bruised lips.

A swift motion of Thor’s arms knocks him from the ground, and it’s only a second later that Loki realizes he’s being hoisted up into the air. His legs snake around Thor’s hips, chest heaving and lips sliding against his brother’s mouth.

Oh, this is so very wrong. In his head he’s already anticipating the kick he’s about to give his brother, but when he thinks about it, all he sees is a full smear of angry lust and how he wants more of it, how he’s already picturing the sight of them pressed against each other, Thor walking blindly into Loki’s room as he—

Loki’s head stops functioning when he feels the long drag of Thor’s fingers along his cock.

 _Norns._  Thor’s hand feels so good it almost shames Loki how much he wants more of it. And Thor isn’t even moving his hand anymore, just keeps it around Loki’s shaft and Loki for all he knows, hardens more at the warmth alone.

He is thrown onto the bed, and when he looks up he sees Thor still fully-clothed, hands already fumbling with his trousers as he rakes his eyes over the sight of his brother laid across the bed waiting for him.

A flick of Loki’s hand peels off every layer of leather from Thor’s body. His hands detach themselves from his body as he motions for Thor to return to the bed, and Thor more than willing complies, diving into Loki’s hold and losing himself in the feeling of Loki’s tongue against his.

Their cocks brush against each other in the process of settling more comfortably on the mattress. Loki’s head is thrown back as he lets out a loud sinful whimper. Thor wastes no second and begins pressing hot open-mouthed kisses on the flesh of Loki’s neck.

Somewhere from the back of his head, a voice is desperately screaming at him to stop whatever in Hel’s name they’re doing before it all goes wrong, that the thing they’re doing is already wrong but Loki must still put up an effort to prevent things from getting worse.

Loki isn’t even ignoring the voice. He hears it perfectly loud and clear even through the continuous string of sounds he’s letting out, but does nothing about its warning.

Despite being completely aware of the dangers of crossing the lines and giving into lust, he lies there exposed, bare and willing in front of his brother while he allows his arousal to drown every trace of rationality left inside his head.

Thor’s mouth feels hot and good against his skin and Loki allows his eyes to flutter shut at the surge of pleasure. It’s not until when a row of teeth unexpectedly digs into his flesh that Loki finds his voice again.

“Brother,” he says, barely even a whisper, brain shutting down for a moment when he realizes that the name doesn't appropriately fit their current situation. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

Thor doesn’t stop, but when Loki places a firm grip on his shoulder, he pulls away to stare at Loki with a curious look. “Then why did you strip me of my armor?”

Loki doesn’t even know why, realizes that he doesn’t really care enough to dwell on the question too long. He pulls Thor’s face back against his and captures his lips again. Loki sighs against his mouth, aroused and perfectly content.

A moment later, Thor sits upright and wraps a hand around each of Loki’s ankles, pushing them up further into the mattress until Loki’s knees are high up in the air and the flesh of his thighs is greeting the length of Thor’s cock.

Loki is exposed like this—much more exposed—with his knees spread apart and thighs pulled up to reveal the once hidden sight of his puckered hole.

He looks up at Thor and dissolves the look of arousal painted across his face. Loki would bet his whole life that he’s never once imagined flashing himself to his brother this way—naked and heaving and shameless.

Thor’s hand is back on Loki's cock again, thick fingers dragging from the tip down to the base. Loki stops breathing and falls apart altogether. Thor drops back down against Loki’s chest and presses his lips against Loki’s—touching but not moving.

Thor reaches down to cup his cock and guides himself towards Loki’s thighs. In an agonizingly slow pace, he pushes in, hips thrusting forward, Loki’s thighs consciously pressing together as Thor’s cock slides between his flesh and brushes against his own length at every fleeting thrust.

Loki’s mouth falls slack. This is not the first time he’s received this treatment but everything still feels a thousand times better and Loki doesn’t know why. Perhaps it’s because it’s his brother who’s driving him crazy with every thrust he makes into his thighs, that it’s Thor’s cock that’s dragging against his own in a way that makes Loki forget that they’re doing this inside the palace, that they’re brothers and they should be behaving as brothers, not exploring the depths of sex while they lay skin to skin hidden inside their chambers.

Thor’s thrusts don’t falter. The crash of his hips against Loki’s thighs is a feeling beyond compare and Loki is too lost to even remind himself that whatever they’re doing is already beyond reasonable.

Lust has clouded his brain into a fog he cannot dissipate that his hands have already begun acting against his will, like reaching for the head of Thor’s cock as it slides between the pale skin of his flesh, or gripping at Thor’s shoulders to pull him down and catch his tongue again.

He can hear Thor’s moans now, catches an earshot of his own name escaping Thor’s lips like a mantra. The breathy sounds make Loki’s hands clasp again, tightly gripping onto the sheets.

Seidr rolls from his fingers once more. He can feel himself drawing out his power and casting out a spell, though Loki doesn’t know which one.

Thor halts in his movements. Loki opens his eyes to ask just  _why_  he had stopped but Thor beats him to it as he pushes one of Loki’s thighs down, and moves the other to allow just enough room for his hips to fit in between.

Another look from Thor is cast upon Loki. He doesn’t know what message Thor is trying to convey or what he’s going to do next but Loki  _wants_ it, asks no longer and instead nods, giving his brother the signal to continue.

A moment later, he feels the tip of Thor’s cock pressing against the warm muscle around his hole. Suddenly things are very  _very_ wrong now and it makes Loki snap out from the fog of arousal that has clouded his head into thinking that whatever Thor is about to do would still be  _right._

It’s only then that Loki realizes that the magic he has inflicted only moments ago happened to be a spell for providing slickness within his skin and stretching his muscle far open enough that he would experience limited discomfort.

And that Thor noticed how Loki had just unconsciously opened himself through magic and decided that it was too good of an opportunity to pass up _._

Norns _ _.__

Loki begins panting, words just collecting themselves in his throat, but it’s already too late. Thor is already pushing in, eyes closed and breaths struggled as the first inch of his cock pushes past Loki’s rim.

“Brother,” Loki says, biting back the whimper that threatens to escape because the contact just feels impossibly  _good_. Thor continues pushing in slowly, Loki panics more. “Brother, please pull out.”

Thor either ignores him or just fails to hear the panic in Loki’s voice. He continues to push, eyes still squeezed at the pleasure.

“Thor, we  _cannot_. Pull out!”

Thor is too lost to listen, and Loki is painfully hard on the bed that it almost hurts to want to stop. His breathing is ragged, his panic already surfacing, but still, Thor doesn’t stop.

Then Thor slides in fully, the length of his cock dragging into Loki’s heat in just one swift motion and Loki finds himself letting out a long breathy moan. It’s too good, it's  _too_  good, everything is, and he doesn’t want it to stop.

But it has to.

Loki snaps back again, and Thor is there, still lost, still devouring the pleasure, still getting used to the feeling of Loki’s heat around him.

This has to stop now.

“I said pull  _out _!”__

Loki screams with all his strength, and Thor as if just returning to reality, snaps out from his trance and immediately slides out. When Loki is no longer held down, he scrambles free from the bed. Thor reaches out with wide concerned eyes but Loki bats his hands away.

What have they done?

Loki balances himself onto his feet and trudges into the bathing chambers. He doesn’t care if Thor’s following him or not, doesn't care if Thor is going to throw out apologies into the air because Loki’s head istoo  _full_ to grasp another single unnerving thought.

And he still feels full, if the involuntary clenching of his hole around nothing but air should be an indication. His skin is hot from where Thor had pressed his lips and Loki forces his eyes shut for a brief moment.

“Loki,” Thor calls out. “Brother, forgive me. I wasn’t thinking.”

Loki ignores him, growing more aware of his still exposed skin. He approaches his robe where it had fallen onto the ground and throws it over his shoulders, deciding to cover up immediately.

He’s still having trouble breathing. Anger and shame are fighting in his stomach but Loki is too exhausted to let either of the two win.

When he looks back, Thor is standing by the door frame, panting and bare. He pleads at Loki with his eyes but the trick works no longer for him.

“Brother, I’m sorry. I was truly foolish and I’m sorry, I’m  _sorry _—”__

A harsh slap of his hand meets Thor’s cheek. Thor’s head is thrown to the side at the sudden contact and Loki draws his hand back, glaring daggers at his brother for his body is too weak to materialize blades at the moment.

“I will  _never_  forgive you.”

Thor stands there stunned, lips unable to form words as his fingers crawl to where Loki had slapped him. Loki darts his eyes away, blinks back the tears welling up in his eyes and misses the way Thor returns to the room, redressing as quickly as he could, and disappearing without another word.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY *sheds tears away*

When Loki awakens to the servant’s urgent knocking on his door the next morning, he frantically resists the urge to vomit all over his sheets.

The sheets are actually fresh and had only been used overnight, and to ruin them with his clumsiness would be to ruin his efforts of stripping away every last piece inside his room that managed to remind him of Thor’s presence.

(Loki refused every bit to lie on the same bed with the very same sheets and the same scent of his brother lingering like lost trails.)

There definitely was no ale involved to spin his head into this staggering mess, but Loki could bet right here and then that he doesn’t even _need_ ale to get into this mess, that it was his wary thoughts alone and memories of Thor and his hands and the light tipping of his cock against his entrance that had brought him to this condition.

The knocking doesn’t stop. It wouldn’t actually stop until Loki himself asks the servant to stop banging on his door so that no further damage would be done to his wreck of a head.

“My prince,” the servant calls out, sounding exasperated. She must have been trying to wake him up for the last a couple of minutes. “Food has been prepared in the hall. The Queen grows wary of your absence.”

Loki shuts his eyes at the volume of her voice. Must she speak so loudly? The mattress is soft underneath his body and Loki wishes he could just sink into it and never have to come out again.

He sends the servant a signal to leave, also alerting that he is awake and is in fact not dying.

Loki observes the streaks falling through the glass of his windows, and just a single glance at the amount of brightness tells him that it’s actually already later than he had expected. If there’s anything he despises in the mornings, it’s arriving late into the dining halls; always being met with a series of questions along with Thor’s curious eyes across the table.

It’s hard to gather up the courage to even _want_ to get up from the bed, but Loki does it anyway. He cleans up rather quickly, depending on his magic more than he usually would, only because Thor had really put an effort to use his teeth last night for specific purposes.

Because right there, in the expanse of Loki’s pale column on his neck, is the most obvious and most noticeable purple bruise serving as a reminder of last night’s events.

With a long sigh, Loki conceals the mark with a wave of his fingers and finally leaves the room.

Thor is there, already seated on his place, looking very much like the epitome of indignity and discomfort. Loki strolls into the area, ignoring the looks sent by both Frigga and Odin as he settles across from Thor and begins to casually pick at his food.

Thor doesn’t even lift an eye. _Coward_ , Loki wants to call him.

“Loki,” Frigga says, hilariously just in time. She is _always_ going to grow concerned about his odd displays of behavior. “Do you feel unwell?”

“All is fine, mother.” The lie is smooth, so smooth that Thor visibly flinches across from him.

Frigga notices the movement and turns to her other son. “Thor?”

“Yes, mother?”

“Did you boys fight?”

“No,” they quickly answer in unison, _too_ quickly, and the fact that they do only makes Frigga’s suspicion grow even more.

Loki curses Thor under his breath. If Loki could survive enough and spare himself from the growing suspicion of their parents, Thor could at least try doing it for himself as well. Loki has done enough of cleaning after his brother’s messes.

The goblet Odin is clutching in his hand clanks against the rims of the fruit bowl. He begins humming, sips from the goblet, and cues the start of a conversation.

“Worry not, Frigga. Thor must only have been nervous as of late.”

Frigga happens to find that statement hilarious because she releases a soft laugh. “I doubt it, darling. Surely the nerves haven’t caught up with my son, am I correct?”

She’s speaking to Thor now, and Loki still does not follow. Even after the sudden shift of attention, Thor does not look up.

“Nervous about what?” Loki asks, growing curious, already interjecting into the conversation that has somehow left him in the dark.

Frigga throws a look at Odin—one that Loki doesn’t catch—before resting the softest of her gazes on her younger son.

“We have been discussing Thor’s coronation.”

And _oh_ , it just hits Loki right in the core. Suddenly the moment he spends growing agitated at Thor’s cowardice shifts into another fit of hatred over his pride and arrogance. Thor, his brother, walking along the aisle inside the throne room, ready to step in and accept the crown, all the while Loki stands from the side, unable to do anything but watch.

At the words, Loki finds himself looking at Thor. Gone are the memories of Thor taking his own cock in his hands, heaving out struggled breaths as his hips push up to thrust into the gap between Loki’s thighs, while Loki himself lies there panting, accepting, opening up to his brother in ways he had never imagined doing.

Those fresh memories are replaced with older ones, ones that are fueled with hatred, frustration, and envy. When he looks at Thor, he doesn’t see the face that had kissed him while being carried into his room. He doesn’t see the face that fell into a perfect canvas of arousal and contentment when Loki had tugged at the strands of his hair.

The silence stretches further. Frigga’s wariness flashes across her face. “Hasn’t Thor already discussed this to you?”

“I’m afraid not.” Loki’s eyes never leave his brother. It sparks up a flame of displeasure deep inside his chest that neither Frigga or Odin had thought about discussing said coronation to their other son as well. “It hasn’t really been until recently that you’ve gone discussing important matters by my absence.”

Frigga sighs at his words. “No, Loki.”

“We have discussed it with your brother first because the line of the succession falls to him, not you.” It is Odin speaking now, and the words that fly from his father’s mouth only sting no less. Odin fixes him a firm look. “It is only upon practical intention that we speak with him first, my son.”

Loki lets it slide for now. At the moment, he just really wishes to be alone.

“You have my understanding, father,” Loki says, and it’s the first time that Thor looks at him. Inside his eyes guilt is held tightly, and Loki ignores it. He doesn’t need to be pitied now. He just wants to feed this now growing anger. “Perhaps Thor can tell me more about the coronation himself.”

When Loki is dismissed from the hall several minutes later, he cages himself inside his room. Too angry to talk to anyone, too angry to confront his brother about last night.

Moments later, he hears the loud slam of Thor’s door from the other side of the wall. Loki sits and reads, proclaims that he doesn’t need his brother’s presence right now, but still he waits for the quiet knocking on his door.

Thor doesn’t come to see him.

…

The coronation is set to take place the following week.

Odin makes a public announcement of the grand coronation straight after holding several sessions of court over their supposed action plan for the crown prince. Frigga distributes her command over the palace and the ceremony that’s about to be held, busying herself with picking a menu filled with fine options of meat and focusing on another set of armours for the two princes.

Thor speaks not a single word about The Other Night, speaks about nothing to Loki at all, and Loki wallows his days away inside the library and on the still fresh sheets on his bed.

Loki begins to plan more and more every day. It’s not going to be good, but he sticks with it, watching his blueprint develop and turn itself into a three-dimensional model.

Loki still has enough time.

…

The fifth time Thor wraps a hand around Loki’s neck, they’re about to head inside the ceremonial hall.

The sound of horns echoing through the empty corridors serves as a reminder enough for Loki that he is expected to be inside the hall at the moment. Only minutes are left before the ceremony starts, but having grown accustomed to Thor’s terrible habit of showing up minutes past the dot on the clock (even on his own coronation), Loki makes a detour and successfully manages his way to Frigga’s garden.

He just has to breathe. In every single room, people piling and fleeing in haste are seen, eager to shed themselves in the glamour that Loki seems to find appropriate enough for the triumph of their new king.

Who would blame them, honestly? Asgard has been on her toes for this very day, even Loki himself if he would be forced to admit it, but only because it is the day he has been preparing for, and it is the day he witnesses with bare eyes the weight of the crown falling onto his brother’s shoulders.

His mind drifts back to Thor for a split second, how he had appeared in front of Loki’s door last night. Loki had opened the door just enough to display his hesitation to let Thor in, but soon realized that his brother had no intention of entering. Thor had simply stood there, mouth agape and closing again as if failing to find the words, and leaving when Loki began closing the door on him.

For a week Loki thinks they were both capable enough to survive everything—the risked glances, wordless encounters in the hall every morning, brief discussions about Thor’s coronation—and Loki would applaud his own brother for his display of dignity if only Thor was actually _speaking_ to him.

Loki does in fact have the right to complain because he isn’t exactly _avoiding_ Thor. There had been subtle, very subtle advances during talks in the hall over their plates but somehow Thor had always managed to dodge the questions Loki addressed to him.

Frigga notices every detail. It only makes Loki grow wary of the fact that she hasn’t approached him about these minor incidents yet.

Standing in the garden, hovering the shrubs and eyes straightly directing to the landscapes of Asgard, it’s too easy to forget everything. Too easy to forget that today Thor will be crowned king and Loki is about to swear fealty to his own brother, easy to forget and instead realize that whatever happened last week in his chambers is long gone and will remain a vague memory forever.

Too easy to forget that the vague memory does not feel like a memory at all but instead a birth of a new star that plays in front of Loki’s eyes as he stares into the void every night.

The pair of horns sticking out from his headpiece is actually pretty heavy. Loki doesn’t know why Frigga had insisted adding the piece to his armour when it would do absolutely nothing to make him stand out from the crowd.

Because Thor is already there, shining like the sun he is, effortlessly gleaming against the rows of excited faces, luring Asgard and all its attention to his greatness.

Loki’s fingers begin picking at the veins of his other wrist, a habit he seems to have picked up from his mother. He sighs loudly, finally breathing in the humidity.

A voice interrupts his thoughts. Loki doesn’t need to turn around to know whom that voice belongs to.

“Are you a knight?” the voice asks, approaching closer now. “A fearless warrior?”

Loki turns to the source of the sound and relishes the sight of Frigga looking rather exquisite in her drapes of lustrous golden silk.

“Perhaps a young prince?” She approaches closer with easy and timid steps and Loki’s smile widens at the description. “What a handsome noble looking quite lonely at this time of the morning.”

Loki only glances away and hovers his eyes over the landscapes before returning to Frigga with one of his charming grins. “Perhaps not all treasures are meant to be found.”

When Loki watches the playful knowing expression appear on Frigga’s face, he offers an outstretched arm and waits for Frigga to hook her own around it before walking them further into the garden.

“A beautiful fine maiden. What is it that troubles you for you to be wandering here alone in the morning?”

“I simply seek some company, much like you, if I assume correctly,” Frigga says from his side, and Loki flashes another one of his smiles that have only been specifically addressed to her. “Though I may add that I am no longer a maiden.”

“That’s just too unfortunate for me,” Loki says, feigning a frown that happens to make Frigga chuckle the slightest. “Perhaps I am just not made fit for such beautiful women like you.”

They walk past a column of sprouting orchids. Loki plucks (clones) a flower and pushes it to Frigga’s face.

Frigga breathes out a warm laugh, taking the flower from him nonetheless. “Where are you taking me?”

“To a garden, belonging only to a woman I know to have the same features of beauty you possess—my mother.”

At that, Frigga stops her heels. Loki becomes aware of the halt in their movements and is soon forced to turn to her with a questioning look.

Frigga places a warm hand on the side of his face and Loki covers it with his own, instantly feeling the surge of seidr flowing through the touch.

“My dear, what troubles you?”

Loki leans into the touch and stares down at his mother. He realizes that this is a chance he could never have again, a chance to tell her everything that had happened between him and Thor without having to fear the judgement he thinks Frigga might still be capable of showing, no matter how much she reminds him that there is nothing that can stop her from loving him as well as his older brother.

It’s _everything_  Loki wants to say. So he doesn’t say it.

“Nothing.”

Frigga seems to think otherwise. “I’ve seen you ill-behaved since the discussion of Thor’s coronation. Is that what troubles your mind?”

So Frigga suspects nothing. Could this be better then? Surely reasoning out Loki’s behavior as a result of the disappointment over the discussions they failed to share with him could be better than actually admitting to having fallen into bed with his own brother.

Loki grimaces. He doesn’t even want to _think_ about it right now, not when his mother is right in front of his face and is currently trying to break into the barriers Loki has put up around his head.

No one can _ever_ know. So he says yet another lie.

“It’s rather overwhelming, don’t you think? To see your brother live up to his birthright.”

It’s not exactly a lie, though. Only a single word rounds up the closest to the truth.

 _Overwhelming_. Loki wants to laugh about how much of an understatement the word is.

He begins to look away, afraid that his emotions might resurface just enough so they could be noticed, but Frigga’s hand on his cheek stops him from doing so.

“My son, my young trickster, proved himself a master of my gift as well as of flattering words. To this very day, you have made me very proud,” she whispers, and Loki feels his chest tightening at the words. “More than you know.”

“I adore you more than words may allow,” Loki says in a hushed tone. “Though I suppose it is simply time for you to return to your man. You cannot keep him waiting any longer.”

A smile breaks onto Frigga’s face. Loki’s chest tightens even more as thinks about that expression present to display her happiness, tries to memorize the curve of her lips when she stares at him, wonders whether that smile would’ve still appeared had she known what he has planned on doing today.

Like a flicker of magic, an instant second, in the rate of travelling light, the smile disappears and is then replaced by a firm line.

“Very well. The ceremony will begin soon and you _must_ find your brother before the doors open.”

Loki lets go of her arm, watches her walk back into the corridors. “Can’t the beautiful woman I just met accompany me on my way?”

When Frigga turns to him, the smile is there again. Loki basks it in, wishes it would never have to fade away. “This woman already has a fine nobleman waiting for her.”

Loki feigns a look of dejection, but Frigga is already turning around to even catch it. He realizes the pattern and arrives at a conclusion that Frigga will _not_ be happy with him the next time they talk.

...

The horns on his head are definitely ridiculously heavy. Loki realizes more of this as he steps out from the shadow of the pillars and greets Thor in the empty corridor.

“Nervous, brother?”

Thor laughs. Heartily, at that. Or so Loki thinks, because he hasn’t heard that laugh in a while. Loki allows himself to hope that Thor is being sincere even through something simple as laughing at the first ever sentence Loki has properly said to him since the previous week.

“Have you ever known me to be nervous?” Thor turns to him, with the reflection of flames in his eyes and lips that curved into a genuine grin.

“Well, there was a time in Nornheim.”

“That was not nerves, brother. _That_ was the rage of battle.”

Here they go again.

Just when Loki thought that Thor might just last a minute without so much as hinting at his arrogance, it happens right then. Loki changes the topic before his brother could drive him crazy once more. Now was just not the time.

“You came to my chambers last night.”

The words are structured to ask, but Loki doesn’t phrase it as a question. Thor’s laugh dies down next to him.

“Yes.” Thor’s voice sounds hesitant. “Perhaps I just felt the need to see you before this day.”

“You would have a word with me, then.”

“I intended to.” Thor is already looking at him now. “We haven’t spoken about what happened, brother.”

In Loki's head, he’s already laughing at the name. He arches a brow instead. “And you suppose now is the time to talk about that matter?”

Loki asks because now is certainly _not_ the time. Not when Thor is just minutes away from going through the doors and stepping onto the throne, not when Loki is still not consoled over the fact that his brother is about to be king, not when Loki cannot bear even thinking about his sheets and Thor’s skin and the slickness from his cock.

“Loki, I cannot—” Thor begins, but cuts himself off. He runs a hand over his face before completely turning to his brother. “I cannot go out there carrying the burden of my mistakes. My guilt has been eating me alive and I just… I just need to know if you’re all right.”

The laugh that bubbles out from Loki’s throat is unexpected.

“Would I be in any place _all right_ after what happened?” he asks, voice rising. “You kissing me? Fucking me fully when I clearly asked you not to? What in the nine realms was _that_ supposed to mean, Thor?”

Loki sees it clearly now—the sight of his brother bare and hovering the bed, the flick of his fingers over Loki’s cock, the press of his length against the rim of his hole, the _damn_ sight of Thor slipping his name into a breathless moan and _fuck_.

He isn’t supposed to be seeing these images now, not when Thor is in front of him, looking so regal and golden and gleaming like the sun he is. Loki turns away, his throat tightening.

“I’m sorry, Loki. I have no excuses.”

Loki scoffs at that. “Of course you don’t, you’re impossible. And you’re my brother, _and_ you bedded me. How worse can that get?”

Silence. He hears the approach of footsteps, but Thor’s voice fills in.

“You did not stop me.”

What the fuck?”

Loki doesn’t even deny it. “You’re right, I didn’t.”

Thor presses on. “Why did you not stop me?”

Why did he not stop Thor? Why didn’t he just press the dagger in and just stab him all at once so Thor’s cock never had to push into him in the first place?

Of course there were ways to stop his brother but Loki didn’t, and the fact that he had never so much as done anything to stop Thor from getting any further since the moment he had entered his bathing chambers is driving Loki insane.

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I said I don’t _know_ , Thor. Keep your mouth sealed, someone’s coming.”

A servant approaches a second later, lending out a headpiece decorated with feathers to Thor, who claims it in reluctance and grips it with the slightest hint of nervousness.

Loki watches the movement, eyes every single detail, and thanks the Norns that he has spent just enough time with his brother to read through his mannerisms like an open book.

“You’re not ready,” Loki comments.

Surprisingly, Thor agrees. “You’re right. I’m not.”

“Your contradiction to your own statement earlier is surfacing. You do realize this yourself, do you not?”

“It’s the _throne_ , Loki, not some kind of trip to Alfheim which we can return from.”

“Stop being so nervous, Thor. It’s making me uncomfortable.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Thor snaps, growing impatient, and Loki finally, _finally_ grins. It has always been so amusing for him to see his brother so riled up.

Something clicks in the atmosphere. The sounds of the servants fall as echoes in the background and it’s then that Loki realizes that they're finally alone. He turns to Thor, who in all cases refuses to meet his eye.

Loki should say something now. What’s the best way to ensure the success of any game he plans to play with an opponent?

Sentiment.

“I have looked forward to this day as long as you have,” Loki starts, through a whisper despite the silence, and Thor finally turns to him with a hopeful look. “You’re my brother and my friend. Sometimes I am envious, but never doubt that I love you.”

And then it’s there, the same warm fingers, the same rough palm, caressing his skin in the slightest of touches around his neck. Loki leans into the contact, watching Thor’s lips curve into a subtle smile.

“Thank you,” Thor whispers, fingers loosening around Loki’s neck.

Loki grins. “Now give us a kiss.”

It was only meant to be a joke, really, fully knowing that Loki is undeniably in a foul mood at the moment and is definitely not feeding off the press of Thor’s fingers on his skin. So when Thor leans in and brushes his lips against his, it takes Loki by surprise.

“Thor,” Loki whispers, voice tentative and walls left unguarded. He glances up and hopes that the glare he gives off brings out at least a glint of his fury. “I wasn’t being serious."

Thor nods at him. “I know.”

He kisses Loki again, barely pressing, but still it takes Loki’s breath away. The contact feels odd and awkward, and Loki can hardly imagine how they look like right now; standing in the middle of the corridor with faces pressed, looking like utter fools in the act. So Loki presses back against Thor’s lips with the slightest force, mouth closed but welcoming.

Then Thor is pulling back. Loki is stunned for a moment, the reality of him kissing his brother again making him freeze for a stretch of seconds. Then it settles again. Thor isn’t smiling at him, but the look on his face says that they’re okay and that nothing is supposed to change between them.

The _irony._

“Thor, what are we doing?”

"I don't know."

Thor holds his gaze for a moment, fingers loosening and mouth held slightly agape. "Have I gone too far? Do you want us to stop?”

Loki pretends to think about it for a moment, _pretends_ because his mind has already made up an answer which also happens to be an answer he doesn’t like, so Loki changes it.

“Yes.”

At that, Thor releases his hold briefly.

Loki turns his heel and leaves, thinking that if he had stayed any longer, he might have had ended up pulling himself out of his own mess before it could even start.

When Thor finally walks along the aisle to the throne, Loki tries not to stare with regret and deep longing.

He fails.

…

The frost giants were killed, but they have succeeded.

Loki has succeeded as well.

…

He cannot remember how Thor’s lips had tasted like. More and more as every day passes he begins to ache for a memory of its softness, its caress, the subtle tingle that left fire trailing on his skin.

When Thor had been banished, Loki felt the growth of satisfaction in his stomach, its hunger revealing much more about his own longing for vengeance, for the throne he was refused to claim, for the love from his father he never once has received.

Odin’s lies were the knife Loki had never managed to master dodging. To know of his true parentage was to question every face that dared to show up, to question the bed he lies on, to wonder if he had ever deserved a place for himself in the kingdom, if Odin had ever seen him as a son more than a political pawn.

At night, Loki watches what he considers to be his punishment. Thor has come across a woman in his path, one he has found a connection with, one he holds at night, craves for her touch, seeks ways to catch the sight of her smile.

The longing in Loki’s guts burns with the fiery need for his brother. Anything, even just a voice, or a whisper at night, an unconscious slip of his name from Thor’s lips as he dreams and lulls away into blissful sleep.

Loki awaits Thor’s call, but it does not come.

Midgard has done Thor well, has forced him to strip all the layers of his arrogant exterior until he’s left bare with the unfamiliar recognition for his own real power; his humbleness, his consideration for most people around him, his acceptance over his own failures and defeat.

Loki almost cannot recognize his brother. At night, he still watches. With Gungnir grasped from self-consciousness in his hand, he bears the unfamiliar gnawing in his chest as Thor spends more of his time with the mortal.

Odin does not wake up. After having mauled several of the Jotun warriors Loki yet again visits the land of the giants. He meets Laufey, who ends up being convinced to reclaim the casket while Loki grants them access into Asgard, not knowing how things would all backfire at the twists of Loki's words, leading the giant to his own demise, and eventually evoking the return of Thor.

He does not fight Loki, but Loki craves for the surfacing of anger and vengeance, for the pierce of his spear into Thor’s chest, for the screams Loki wished to let out ever since he had been hearing them in his own head for nights.

Thor tries to hold onto his brother, but it just wasn't possible.

“I’m not your brother,” Loki hisses, vision blurring with frustrated tears. “I never was.”

The Bifrost explodes when the last strike of Thor’s hammer comes into contact with the bridge and all its strength left. The bridge falls in shards and appears through debris that resemble icicles. Midgard will soon be a place beyond any of Thor's reach. The mortal woman will no longer be of significance but will instead be a vague memory in Thor’s mind.

Odin wakes up just in time to try and salvage his sons. Loki cries out the desperation that had been building up in his darkened soul, but even his own father cannot do anything to save his son from crashing into himself.

Thor tries to hold onto his brother, but it just wasn't possible.

Loki falls into the void with the memory of his neck being encased by trembling fingers and the taste of Thor’s lips searing into his head.

…

The sixth time Thor wraps a hand around Loki’s neck, Loki just lets him.

He descends over Midgard with the comforting presence of the scepter. Knees fall onto the ground and heads bow to the soil he walks on, the image of their eyes glowing bright blue perching a rather familiar memory in his head that definitely does _not_ recall the flash of lightning and the thunder that never fails to make the hair rise on his skin.

Petty, petty humans. It delights him to see how so far back they are from his steps, so low and weak and pathetic and Loki relishes in that. They stand no chance against the power he could bring forth. Their pleads for mercy is nothing but a mere flick of voice against the raging screams of anger buried deep within.

The humans kneel to him, however, Loki is smart enough to know that nothing as satisfying as the sight of their surrender would last long in this world. The clique of lost creatures Barton had warned him about catches his tail, but Loki stands tall over their optimism and manages to pull down the soldier who had attempted to best him with a throw of his shield.

It lasts until the quick zap of gold and red passes from the corner of his eyes and he’s being sent flying off onto the solid pavement from the force that had blasted from the still vague vision of a mortal man.

Loki’s eyes return to their state and the armour helplessly shining around his body dissipates. He is met with the image of the solider and a man built of metal.

Winning is easier to achieve when fate requires you to lose along the way. Loki gives up easily and settles rather comfortably against the walls of the mortals’ flying fortress.

When thunder cracks in the distance, the hairs on his skin dance. He looks around hopelessly for a reassurance that whatever is about to come is _not_ what Loki does not hope to come. Soon the mortals catch his odd display of wariness. He decides not to dwell on their suspicion.

"What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?"

It’s painful when Thor grips his jaw. Thor barely lasts five seconds inside the rear entrance before summoning his hammer where it had knocked off the same man that had blasted Loki before, and spins it to hoist them into the air.

The crash onto solid ground breaks more bones in his body. Thor is hovering over him while quick restless breaths racked through his limbs. Loki continues to wince.

“Where is the Tesseract?”

“I’ve missed you too.” And Loki means it.

Thor has none of it. “Do I look to be in a gaming mood?”

The heaviness in Loki's body does not subside. It only worsens as he forces himself to his feet. “Oh, you should thank me. With the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the All-father have to muster to conjure you here? Your precious Earth.”

Thor drops his hammer. For a beat, Loki thinks he’s about to be pushed off the cliff but Thor’s fingers find his neck. They’re tight, bruising, and angry.

“I thought you dead.”

“Did you mourn?”

“We all did.” Lies, lies, _lies_. “Our father—”

Lies.

" _Your_ father."

Loki frees himself from his brother’s grasp. Gone is the pang in his soul when a lifetime was spent bearing the absence of those very same fingers.

“You think I enjoy feeding off your lies?” Loki turns his back to Thor, a hand around his hip, a spell cast from the whispers of his memory to heal the terrible soreness. “Nothing can be of truth now when I have been lied to from the very first breath I took.”

“You bear the burden of a family, Loki,” Thor says. “The truth has been made clear ever since you were brought to us. You are part of this family and this I believe to be true.”

“Oh really? Does Odin share your thoughts?” Loki snaps back to his brother, relishing the evident flash of desperation across those golden features. “And what of your mortal? What of your petty desire for a creature no more than a pathetic excuse for a woman? Would you have the might to lie to me again and eradicate my doubt?”

That hits the head of the nail. Thor finds the shaft of his hammer for control. “You have no right to lay this against me, Loki. As I remember, you let me go.”

“And you let me fall,” Loki responds back quickly, almost too quickly, in a way he hopes would jab at Thor’s chest, in a way that forces Thor to realize how those words hide the double meaning. “You let me _fall_ , Thor.”

 _Into the void,_ Loki wants to add. _Where your absence consumed me like an unending torment._

Thor approaches closer. The night is cold and growing with darkness but Thor’s eyes glisten underneath it all. “I admit that I did… and I mean to bring you back."

Loki’s eyes see red. He brings a hand to Thor’s chest and pushes him from his path. “Speak of your lies behind my back where I can regard them no longer.”

His legs pull up a pace, bringing him to the edge of the cliff, allowing him to recall how he had once held onto the rope for his dear life, hoping and wishing that no one owned the pair of shears that would eventually cut the rope off.

But he remembers Thor being at the other end of that rope. He remembers Odin - his father - Odin being the one to hold up those shears.

“I care not to return at all. I have grown, _Odinson_ , in my exile,” Loki says, spitting out the name for it brings disgust to his tongue. “I have seen the true power of the Tesseract, and when I wield it—”

“Who showed you this power?” Thor demands. “Who controls the would-be king?”

“I _am_ a king!”

“Not here!” Thor screams at his face, rushing to him and gripping harshly at Loki's arms. “You give up the tesseract, you give up this poisonous dream!”

A hand returns to his neck.

“You come _home_.”

Thor’s mouth seals over his, and Loki just lets him, lets him steal the power raging in his veins desperate for a release, lets him suck in the air left from his lungs because Loki no longer wants to breathe, no longer wants to stand tall in front of the mortals, wants only to be hidden under the towering height of Thor, under the fingers that itch to be around his neck.

Thor kisses him, holds him. Loki lets him, only watches it happen.

When he pulls back, Loki’s lips tingle at the absence of contact. Thor searches his face for a single trace of emotion, something, _anything,_ but Loki shows him nothing.

When the Chitauri fail, Loki falls defenseless. His arms are held again not by Thor’s but with chains that restricted enough of his movements. The tesseract is once again contained and along with Thor’s cautious eyes and the muzzle that apparently serves to keep his tongue tied, the Bifrost opens to them.

…

The next time Thor wraps a hand around Loki’s neck, Frigga is already dead.

“My dear, what troubles you?” He remembers Frigga asking him on the day of Thor’s coronation. Loki often bears in mind the possible outcomes if he had told Frigga about having fallen into bed with his brother.

In his cell, the lights flicker nonstop. It is an act resulted from the alterations of his seidr, cycles of its weakening and the growing lack of use. Odin had stripped him off most of his power, but Loki knows no secrets of Frigga’s gift and has managed to preserve some of his strength.

He could still cast illusions and move objects from one place to another. Apart from that, that’s about it.

When the guard brings him the news, Loki sends a meek nod in reply. The book in his hand falls unnoticed as he stands from his seat, fingers unclasping around the air before his seidr vandalizes the cell.

He screams once, twice, a hundred rounds of unfinished mourning before his voice turns hoarse and not a single breath can be heard.

At night he dreams of Frigga’s hair brushing against the skin of his cheek, sending tingles throughout his body while her fingers run through the strands of his hair, a barely audible whisper falling from her lips.

_You must allow yourself, my son._

Loki always awakens to the enraged curiosity quickly growing inside his head, what those words could possibly mean, how they would reflect his fate and how it would relate to his time inside the cell.

Eventually, he gives up on trying to figure out what those words mean. At night he still dreams of Frigga, but instead of her hair against his skin, Thor’s fingers remain on the spot, and Frigga only watches.

Frigga is dead.

All because of that petty mortal.

Seidr tingles at the tips of Loki’s fingers. Each day an inch of the cell shatters, breaking at the same rate it strengthens, growing stronger as the anger in Loki’s pulse grows deeper. Thor visits him twice in a week, no longer visits at all when Loki has spit every trace of rage into his face.

His dreams become reoccurring ones that refuse to be erased from his mind the moment he wakes up at the crack of dawn.

At first, they’re only benign—Frigga cloaking him with her whispers of invisibility, Loki’s figure dissipating into thin air with eyes open and ears alert. Sometimes Frigga doesn’t appear in his dreams at all and he is met with Odin instead where they last met at the edge of the Bifrost, only this time it is not Loki who lets go of Gungnir but Odin himself.

The dreams that force him to awaken in the middle of the night are always followed by ones that made him wish he never had to awaken at all.

Frigga would reappear again, with the same golden hands and silken voice whispering the very same words he still cannot comprehend.

_You must allow yourself, my son._

The last time he’s heard of those words, Loki woke up sweating.

When he dreams that night, he doesn’t see Frigga. She doesn’t appear for days, and for days Loki would count with his fingers and every trace of hope left.

She doesn’t return, but Thor does, and Loki sees him through painful grunts, necks tinted with purple welts, and the familiar melody of his name sung like a mantra from Thor’s lips.

It goes on for days that Loki had almost lost count. He would wake up with a raging heartbeat and another fist tearing a hole through the wall.

Why can’t Frigga appear to him again? Her absence drills a hole through his chest and Loki fills that hole with the regret he does not wish to show. Her words echo through his head but every time he hears it, Loki would find his head twisted at those reoccurring syllables.

Some nights, Loki would find himself aching for the sight of Frigga’s voice and the touch of his brother’s fingers on his skin.

Some very rare nights, Loki would find himself crumbling with unshed tears.

Thor comes to him the next day. Loki greets his brother with a glamoured layer of his conviction but Thor sees through him like crystal glass. He drops the illusion and forces himself to choke back a sob when his eyes first meet Thor’s.

“Now you see me, brother.”

Thor is a loaded sight for him, enough that it drives a quick pang in Loki’s chest. His eyes are stoic, chest draped over by cloth that cloaks all regality seen, hair braided back and skin evidently glowing.

Perhaps it’s that mortal. Whatever the woman is doing must be a sole cause for the changes in his brother’s demeanor.

Thor approaches the corner nearest to his brother. “Does the quietness of the cell suit you still?”

“Perhaps you look forward to hearing that it does?” A laugh is drawn out from Loki. “I wouldn’t want to act surprised. What are the odds of Odin’s second son ending up in the dungeons to die all while the firstborn is expected to rule with such burden? They were in your favor, apparently.”

“I’ll have you know that locking you up was beyond my agreement.”

The cell wall breaks at the wave of Loki’s fingers.

“Oh please, brother, let’s not dance around.” Loki reaches deep down into his core and allows just enough rage to show. “You wouldn’t rather have me out loose, would you? Admit it, you _agreed_ to have me locked up. You definitely are the firstborn of Odin, always wishing to follow father’s greedy footsteps. Tell me, did you know that I was taken as a political pawn beforehand?”

Thor visibly flinches. This is not a line they have crossed yet. They have never really spoken about the obvious truth of Loki’s parentage save for that time in Midgard on the cliff, right before Loki had shifted their discussion into arguing about Thor’s relationship with Jane.

“I have never thought you for adopted, Loki.”

“Surely knowing that I was never really your blood would have taken the guilt off your chest, but I take it that it hasn’t? You still carry the burden of regret?”

Frigga’s words repeat themselves in his head again. Loki tries not to break at how much frustrated he is over that single sentence.

“Regret because you fucked a monster and imagined it to be such great recourse? Regret because you have taken in me in ways you should never really have? Regret because it was wrong and you now find merriment in watching me rot inside this cell?”

If only Loki could see clearly through the tears welling up in his eyes, he would think that Thor held the deepest of sorrows.

“It was _you_ who thought wrongly of what we had done, not me.”

Loki laughs humorlessly. “And does that make you the good person now? When you spoke of your apology and expected that things would mend themselves back? When I took the throne and you plotted your vengeance by fucking that worthless mortal all the while I watched?”

Thor breaks at that.

“It was never my intention to appear having betrayed you, brother.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Loki scoffs, dismissing the thought. “How can you be with her? How can you dare look at the woman who led Frigga to her own ruin?”

“Mother died protecting her.”

“She wasn’t worth protecting. Frigga died for nothing!”

“Frigga died for Asgard,” Thor says in finality. Loki meets his eyes for a second. “Mother died for _you_ , for both of us.”

The first tear falls.

Loki really does need his walls. They act as barriers to eyes who would seem to want to read through his illusions and catch a sight of the emotions he wishes to hide. Thor is one of those eyes, and Loki doesn’t know when Thor had started seeing it all.

The air that falls between them is heavy. Deep surfacing breaths echo across the cell as Loki falls as a pliant figure under the scrutiny of Thor’s gaze.

At that moment, he sees Frigga’s body.

“Did she suffer?”

Thor does not offer an answer. It is wise that he does so for Loki deserves not to hear the burden of the truth. Instead, he stands there, watching his brother fall into shards inside the cell, feeling the grief flush the blood from his head.

“Let me in,” Loki hears Thor say. The barriers of the cell glower with golden steaks. “Let me in, Loki.”

He wants to, Norns, does he want to. But Loki physically can’t, for the force of the barriers is beyond his capabilities and the All-father has somehow succeeded in his plan to weaken Loki’s magic every passing day.

“I can’t.”

Thor brings his hammer up. “You _have_ to. We’ll find a way.”

Mjolnir comes into contact with the energy barrier, successfully tearing through its bonds, but the clash absorbs as much force put into the collision and pushes back with the same momentum that sends Thor flying back onto the ground.

Loki shakes his head at the sight. _It’s not possible,_ he wants to say, but he doesn’t because he needs it to be possible now.

To have Thor at his side, to seek his warmth and the comfort he never failed to give.

“Thor.” He’s already weak. The longer he stays inside the cell the more his seidr weakens. Thor glances up, the evident glint of hope flashing across his eyes. “I’m afraid it’s not possible.”

“Can you not lift this force with your magic?”

“I’m already weak, Thor,” Loki says, and he means it. “Odin bounded my hands.”

“I cannot use the brute strength of my hammer—it does nothing.”

“I know.”

A stunned silence falls over them. Loki only watches, deep yearning sending his chest into flames. A single blink and he’s back in the training grounds of the palace, daggers that fly from his fingers dodging the length of Thor’s sword. Odin watches afar, way further from the shrubs leading to the grounds, peering over his sons instead from the height of the palace’s tower.

Loki knows that Odin watches over him sparring with Thor. He wishes that he’ll make his father proud.

Another blink and Loki finds himself inside the taverns, eyes somehow failing to leave the spot across the room where Thor could be found with an arm slipping around the small of a servant’s back and the other running through blonde strands. They’re lost in their own conversation, and Loki only sits, watches, ignoring the churn in his stomach at the sight of Thor’s fingers enveloping the curve of the woman’s neck.

At the next blink, Loki is in the garden with Frigga. It’s not a memory he recalls having, but it’s the dream he had last seen Frigga in before she disappeared all the way. Her hands stretch invitingly and Loki reaches over to hold her. He does it the same way he had done the last time Frigga visited him in his cell, only this time his hand doesn’t pass through.

“Loki.” Her hands squeeze his. “You must allow yourself, my son.”

“How so, mother?”

“Thor… he is lost, and I can say the same for you,” she whispers. “He cannot find his way, but he is certain of what awaits him at the end. Be there and guide him. One cannot walk further when the other foot is left behind. You must _allow_ yourself, Loki."

_To care for him._

Loki holds her tighter.

His heart pounds against his chest. Just another blink, a millisecond of harmless darkness at the flutter of his eyes, and his hands spark in glowing green.

Thor notices the twitch in Loki’s fingers. It must be his seidr, because Loki feels it too. It’s not much, but they’re building up in his veins again. Frigga must have done something.

“I cannot let you in,” Loki speaks, his head finally formulating decisive thoughts for the first time after his reoccurring fits of grievance. “But you can let me out. Release me Thor, please, I ask of you.”

This shouldn’t be so hard, and Loki thanks the Norns that it isn’t. If Thor is in any way reluctant to release Loki against Odin’s command to leave him bounded, it doesn't show.

Instead, Thor presses a hand against the wall. Loki continues to plead with his eyes.

“Come with me to Svartalfheim and I will grant your release.”

“Svartalfheim, why?”

“The Aether… the algrim who took our mother’s life. Help me escape Asgard and do her justice.”

Loki considers the idea for a moment, realizes that he doesn’t need to reconsider it at all because it’s _exactly_ what he needs right now—vengeance, a body limp before him, veins pulsing at the rush of adrenaline, knives appearing from his palms once beckoned.

He looks over to Thor and finds all traces of grief gone. Loki is suddenly very aware of the fact that he’s nowhere close to the shape Thor is in—composed and entirely optimistic.

Only that Loki sees the rabbit hole, catches the subtle slip-up just in time before it dissipates into thin air.

The Aether.

“Why do concern yourself with the Aether?”

Thor looks reluctant for a moment, but at the look in Loki’s eyes, he lets it go. “It became active and infested Jane’s body, using her as a host.”

Loki scoffs, eyes unblinking at the sight of Thor’s neutral expression. Something pulls at his chest, a weight falls on his shoulders, the streaks between his fingers flicker once, twice, until they die out, and Loki ignores it all.

His mouth opens - closes - opens again, words cutting themselves off, effectively failing him.

“Why do you concern yourself with that woman?”

“She wields no power to control the Aether. It would consume her.”

“You think I know nothing of its power?” Loki asks. “It would consume her, yes, so why not just leave her out there to _die_?”

Those words cut deep enough to evoke a quick flash of anger from the pulsing in Thor’s veins.

“The Aether has to be contained, Loki. It cannot be left within the reaches of the elves for they could bring danger to the realms with its power. And Jane _will_ die, and I cannot let that happen.”

Loki blinks to keep the sting of his tears at bay.

“You love her,” he says and doesn’t ask, for it doesn’t need to be phrased as a question. He’s fallen into the trap, and Loki is already exhausted enough to admit that he was the one who had set the trap in the first place.

Thor offers no answer. Loki doesn’t need an answer to know that he already does.

Loki waits for Thor’s word before finally escaping from the dungeons. He doesn’t know how it happens, but he knows that he’s trusted Thor enough to let him break Loki free from his cell in a manner wherein none of the Einherjar seems to notice. Odin’s spell bounds him still, but when he takes the first steps beyond the energy barriers of the cell, he begins to feel his seidr’s own recovery.

They leave for Svartalfheim soon, and they _should_ leave soon, but Loki refuses to face his foes with dreadful curls on his head and the cuts painted on his skin he is still yet to conceal.

“What makes you think you can trust me?” Loki wonders out loud, just seconds after meeting Thor in one of the corridors that lead to the ship.

“I don’t,” Thor snaps, turning to him briefly. “You should know that when we fought each other in the past, I did so with a glimmer of hope that my brother was still in there somewhere. That hope no longer exists to protect you. You betray me, and I will kill you.”

Loki falls silent.

They walk side by side in hurried steps. By then, Loki’s seidr has recovered fully. He clasps and unclasps his hands around the air to test out the strange feeling of being unbounded.

“Have I hurt you so terribly?” Loki asks.

“Wounded me so,” Thor corrects him. They continue down the hall, so far seeing no traces of Einherjars in sight. “Some grave mistakes you’ve made.”

“You’ve wounded me t—”

Loki is suddenly being shoved against a pillar that happens to hit the back of his skull perfectly, and Norns does it hurt. Thor’s palm is covering Loki's mouth, effectively muffling every noise of protest emitted from him. Thor's eyes are trained to where very few Einherjar men stand and Loki follows the sight.

It’s also then that Loki realizes there’s a hand around his neck.

He doesn’t seem to think when his hand reaches out to rest over Thor’s on his neck. The touch burns, unfamiliar yet at the same time so familiar because they have been doing this for centuries, or at least Thor has. All Loki did was lean in and chase the comfort it gave.

Thor’s head snaps when he feels the hand resting above his. Loki studies his face for a moment, briefly catching the flash of confusion before it finally, finally settles on a look somewhere between exasperation and dismay.

“Loki,” Thor says. Loki hears it as a warning.

But he does it anyway, pressing forward to seal his mouth over Thor’s, sighing audibly when the warmth of Thor’s tongue engulfs his own body and restless mind with a sense of comfort. Loki falls apart, weak and pliant and _so giving_ that it terrifies him to recognize how vulnerable he’s allowing himself to be.

Thor isn’t kissing back—Loki can feel it—but he isn’t exactly pushing him away as well. When Loki pulls back the slightest, Thor’s eyes hold weariness. His fingers fall from Loki’s neck, and Loki finds himself reaching out to put them back to where they belong.

“You love her,” he repeats what he had said to Thor earlier, this time saying it with every hint of an accusation. Thor doesn’t say anything, only provokes Loki to lose it even more. “You love her.”

“Brother, please stop.”

Thor does not catch the tear that falls from Loki’s eye. Loki tears himself away and tries to push back despite the arms that are pulling him to come closer, nearer, right next to Thor’s body where he could at least be comforted.

He doesn’t need to be pitied.

Only that it’s Thor who kisses him this time, and Loki loses every trace of dignity left as he throws his arms over Thor’s shoulders and melts into his mouth.

It’s hot, like this, where the wounds in their chests are split open and pressed together, only growing deeper as they tug at one another, clinging, coming back, recoiling at the want that sets their souls into flames. For this is a grave mistake, and a grave mistake only because Loki relishes in it so and hopes that Thor does too.

It’s a battle they try to win by pushing and pulling; both cannot truly end up on the same page for one will always fall and one will always remain standing, but still it is deemed possible if they either recoil or just let go of the tether.

Loki wishes to pull so bad, so that Thor will be the one that falls and he will remain standing all the way. However, the desire to recoil overshadows the wish somehow, for Loki will much prefer taking everything and anything he can, all the while receiving and accepting from his brother as well.

Thor licks into his mouth. Loki’s obvious tent is embarrassingly pressing against Thor’s thighs but he does not have the time to think about preserving his self-worth.

However the moment it presses against Thor’s thigh is also the moment Thor pulls away to pant heavily against Loki’s cheek.

“We cannot do this brother.”

Loki brings a hand to cup Thor’s jaw and clamp their lips again. “Yes, we can.”

Oh, how the tables have turned.

With Thor’s mouth on his and arms around his waist, Loki finds it difficult to formulate another single thought. Loki presses himself flushed against Thor, who falls forward onto Loki’s shoulder as he drags out a long heavy groan.

“Choose me,” Loki chokes out, almost desperate.

At that, Thor wastes no second to return to his lips. They’re hot and wet and Loki feels tears brimming his eyes upon realizing how much he needs this; Thor at his side, professing how much he cares, how much he is _willing_ to care, how he could have Loki in ways he himself has never really seemed to think about before.

It’s harder when right now it feels as if he’s holding onto his dear life. If he cannot make Thor stay, he falls back to the arms of that woman. Thor pulls back, and Loki almost sensing the horror and the sudden cue for bitten-back words, finds himself pleading again.

“Choose me,” he says again, hands cupping Thor’s face. “Brother, choose _me_.”

Thor does not answer. Loki feels light-headed and he wonders for a moment if he had purposely called on a spell to have such brightness lure out the vision of his eyes.

Thor is panting, lips pressed together but hands hesitant, like they didn’t know what had they have come to do.

Loki figures he doesn't have the strength to face the rejection he’s going to receive straight up. He frees himself from Thor, gaze held tightly, his composure regaining.

“It’s me or that woman,” Loki says, and takes one last look at the sight of Thor’s swollen lips. “If you’ve grown wise enough to decide which, find me in my chambers tonight.”

At that Loki saunters away.

...

The last time Thor wraps a hand around Loki’s neck, breathing has become difficult for Loki.

The dagger that finds its way between Thor’s ribs sends him rolling down the hill with the mortal in an array of struggled cries. _Good_ , Loki says at the back of his mind, _for all I care, go on and watch him suffer._

Loki jumps from the peak of the hill, following Thor’s limp figure as it rolls down to the elves’ feet.

Stabbing him wasn’t part of the plan really. Loki could still recall the brief exchange over their plan of attack that went down between him and Thor as they snuck their way into the ship, and apparently, Thor’s ideas were convincing enough but Loki just never really came without a surprise.

 _(“You don’t have to_ actually _do it—” “I disagree, it is still a terrible plan after all.”)_

He uses a foot to kick Thor square in the face. As expected, Thor rolls back with a series of pained grunts. Footsteps approach and Loki glances up to see the sight of the elves walking closer to where Thor lies.

“All I ever wanted was you and Odin dead at my feet!” Loki wraps up the show by gripping the dagger and cutting off Thor’s wrist.

It’s then that Jane crutches down beside Thor to throw her arms over his chest. Loki watches the frantic flash of her eyes, the obvious concern of her demeanor, breaths failing to even out as Thor struggles against solid ground.

He really isn’t fond of the sight of another woman laying their hands on his brother. Without thinking, Loki pulls her by her waist with a forceful grip, squeezing just enough that it makes her struggle against him. Oh how Loki wants her to hurt, to be punished for taking his brother and everything that was supposed to be _his_.

“Malekith!” His grip tightens around her. “I am Loki of Jotunheim, and I bring you a gift!”

The mortal falls to the elf’s feet, limp and helpless. Malekith eyes her, gaze raking from head to toe, appearing to be intrigued.

“I ask only one thing in return...a good seat from which to watch Asgard burn.”

From the distance, Thor can be heard struggling through a fit of breaths. Somehow the elf turns to him, leaving the mortal forgotten, and making his way to Thor with seething unforgiving eyes.

He kicks Thor to force him onto his back. Jane rises into the air with a gesture of his hand, and slowly as it could be, crimson floats into the air in a string of curves, finding its way for another after being released from its host. The Aether is removed from her limp body, inching more and more towards the dark elf, who holds out a hand, ready to welcome its hunger.

Thor calls out to his brother, and Loki returns Thor’s hand with a simple cast of a spell.

The strike of thunder should be enough to destroy the Aether, but when the explosion brings them a sea of crystals floating to form the familiar shape of the Aether again, it takes both Loki and Thor by surprise. And if only it had been successfully destroyed, the Aether wouldn’t have had entered the streams of Malekith’s veins.

In the next second, Loki is being sucked in by a mass of energy that meant to target the mortal if he hadn’t pushed her towards a different direction. His fingers cannot touch the ground, or the ground refuses to reach out to him. Loki flutters his eyes closed, imagines the world cloaked with color, and hopes his brother would find him.

Thor does, and he comes right in time to push Loki away from where he could have been sucked in.

Loki turns to him. “He’s got the Aether, Thor, don’t let him get away.”

“I’ve heard,” Thor grunts, a tired expression painted on his face.

He throws Mjolnir into the air and follows her on her flight. Loki watches his brother go, entrusting him to be able to handle the Algrim on his own because there are suddenly four elves huddling around him in a circle.

Loki clutches the dagger tighter. After a single breath, he begins to slash their necks one by one.

The last one attacks him from behind, but Loki catches his arm just in time and turns the elf around to push the edge of his dagger deep into his chest.

At a distance, he sees the Algrim punching Thor limp onto the ground. Loki’s breath hitches in his throat. With wobbly steps, he runs.

“Thor.”

He doesn’t think Thor is fully breathing. Loki’s fingers clutch around the nearest blade he finds and impales the Algrim as his arms complete their trajectory towards Thor’s already weakening figure.

His foe screams, taken aback by the sharp point of the blade just sticking out from his chest, and in a shallow breath, he surges forward, aiming the point of the blade directly into Loki’s chest, and pushes.

Loki hears himself let out a gasp, inches of his body quickly falling numb as even his voice he finds difficult to hear. An agonized roar follows; a guttural choke mixed with the familiar tone of helplessness. It’s Thor, is it not? Colour is draining from the once monotonous sky. Why is it so?

Loki sinks to his knees, falling back shortly when the pain that shot to his chest begins to drain the blood from his veins, weakening him in the process.

The Algrim perishes right before him, a sight that Loki relishes in before he is to take one last breath. He finds his voice, tries to, and lucky for him he still has enough strength to speak.

“See you in Hel, monster.”

Thor is rushing to him in a beat. Not one but two hands rest around the nape of his neck, feeling, squeezing but not too much that it adds enough pressure for Loki to feel pain. In fact, he feels the opposite. Thor’s hands are rough with battle but warm from the burning desire to have Loki close this way, to hold him, to never cease to hold on.

Loki lies there just staring. Thor is too good for him, too good to ever witness his own brother fall into his ruin in such a violent way. With a shaky hand, Loki presses a finger against Thor’s chin. It stays there, it doesn’t leave.

“I’m sorry.”

At those words, the dams break and water surges in. Thor falls over to his body, face already wet with tears that are now falling onto the skin of Loki’s temples.

He tries to breathe—Loki could feel how his brother is struggling underneath—but fails. Loki removes the hand that’s pressing against the wound on his chest and brings it around Thor’s jaw. With slight reluctance, Loki pulls at him. Thor glances up to speak, but all words remain stuck on his tongue as Loki pulls him up to his face and kisses him.

Nothing feels good about the contact. Nothing even _feels_ like anything from the touch of Thor’s lips that Loki is already counting the seconds before he could pull away. But he stays there unmoving, presses with just enough conviction because this is where it ends. Everything might feel like nothing but only because Loki is already too weak from feeling _everything_ before.

He pulls away, only because he cannot stay elevating his head for too long. Thor’s tears are hot against his cheeks but Loki makes no move to remove them. He doesn’t need anything more now. He has Thor and he has the very same hands around his neck, and he still has a couple of breaths to spare.

“Stay with me,” Thor whispers, breaths quickening all the while Loki’s began to falter. “You cannot leave me now.”

At that moment, Loki remembers how Thor had snuck into the shadows of the library when Loki had been practicing controlling his weapons, how he had suggested the idea of going on another unauthorized adventure to the training yards that night, and how Loki had looked at his brother like the sun revolved around him and the eyes Thor held glistening under the mischief were actually stars.

Loki remembers the very last thought that lingered in his head before hopping out from the window and cloaking them both with invisibility—that Thor is a young rash fool that acts too much like an easy target, and that Loki might not get used to seeing his brother act that way, but soon realizing that Thor might just prove him wrong in the future.

Earnest lies on the roof of his mouth threaten to escape. Loki wishes he could say something to ease Thor off his pain, that this will not be an image that will haunt him as he sleeps, that Loki will remain only by his side even when the wall of existence separates them so.

With eyes slowly slipping shut, he hears the uneven breaths escaping from Thor’s lips. Loki feels his chest tighten into a knot like a cramp and a quiet rage builds inside.

Rage because he could have done so much more, said something more, tried so much _harder_. He thinks about every opportunity he had left slipping away through his fingers, how he had every chance in the world to allow himself to care but was too blind and too faint-hearted to even try.

Even for Thor.

“I should have…” Loki begins to say, but the words die on his tongue. With one sharp look towards Thor’s eyes, and focusing briefly on the familiar warmth around his neck, he tries again. “I should have allowed myself.”

Frigga stands before him when Loki finally closes his eyes and heaves his last breath. She’s smiling in a way that’s supposed to tell how proud she feels, and Loki waits no longer to approach her. The touch of her seidr forces air not through his lungs but through his soul that continues to recover.

“Has your time come?” Frigga asks, taking his hand in hers.

Loki suppresses the urge to chuckle. What kind of question is that? “It must have, for here I now stand with you.”

“No, my dear,” Frigga says, and if Loki is still breathing (is he?), he must have stopped right here and then. “Thor still searches for you. He always will.”

At the next blink, Loki feels the spread of soreness across his back. The ground beneath him is too solid, and every twist he makes in an attempt to bring himself to his feet has pain shooting directly to his joints.

He’s still in Svartalfheim. A quick glance to his body tells him that his ever so present wound no longer bleeds but is still freshly cut. He must have survived, if he’s only realizing it now, but if there’s anyone who could be in a position to bring back air into his lungs and have seidr repair the cells in his body, it would be Frigga.

It must have been her.

When the guard arrives to collect his body, Loki sets an illusion and returns to the palace announcing his 'death'. Odin falls and evokes Loki's once hidden ploy to step onto the throne all at once.

At least from this position, seated above the throne with Gungnir once again embraced by his still hesitant fingers, Loki may watch over his brother from the distance he might never be able to bridge ever again.

At night, Loki falls asleep to the realization that Thor is just chambers away from his own, breathing and very much alive, and possibly haunted with memories of his brother's death that never even took place.

Sometimes Loki would sleep through the same images of his own body, though sometimes he would wake to the memory of warm fingers kissing the smooth expanse of his skin.

Sometimes he thinks whether he’s actually the one being haunted, or that the aching of his chest at dawn just keeps refusing to cease.

He doesn’t see Thor for years. For all he knows, he could have returned to the mortal Loki had once called petty and worthless, only to cease his rash judgement when he realized that he was actually no less different from her.

Loki longed and longed and _longed._  Still, he searches for those fingers and the warmth they bring him. To imagine and consider the possibility of never being able to have those memories turn into fulfilled dreams again, breaks his soul into pieces so fragile as the goblets he tosses to the wall whenever he grows frustrated.

 _Someday,_ Loki promises himself. Through tangles of his thoughts and the longing he feels for his brother, Loki doesn’t doubt that he will have the courage to chase Thor’s hold once more.

And when he does, Thor will return to him again. Perhaps not now, but perhaps a thousand light years into his chase, he will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S DONE! Thank you so much for your comments! I appreciate how you guys happened to point out details you liked here and there. You have no idea how much I live for your words. Thank you, thank you!
> 
> Based on the ending of the chapter, I would say that it does not tie all strings, thus allowing the possibility for a sequel or at least another part that may finish the story in another way, but I will just say in advance that I don't plan on making another part and will then stick to the ending I wrote, because at least you can decide how you want their arcs to completely end. 
> 
> I was planning to write a one-shot with stripper Loki and nosy brother Thor because I live for Human AUs. Come find me as lokis-golden-horn on tumblr to catch my updates.
> 
> Feedback is VERY appreciated. Thank so much for your words! I'll be back very soon :)

**Author's Note:**

> WELP there we go. Please leave some thoughts? The second chapter will be posted if I get some comments because I seriously don't know how to feel about my writing and I need your opinions lol
> 
> Feedback is very very appreciated. You guys don't know how loudly I squeal whenever I read your comments. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
